Differentiations & Similarities between 5 Forms of State

 

Differentiations & Similarities between 5 Forms of State

Unitary, Federation, Confederation, Hegemony, and Imperium

Confederation, in modern political terms, is usually limited to a permanent union of sovereign states for common action in relation to other states. The closest entity in the world to a confederation at this time is the European Union.

1.  Definition of :

Confederation

      Confederation, in modern political terms, is usually limited to a permanent union of sovereign states for common action in relation to other states. The closest entity in the world to a confederation at this time is the European Union. While the word "confederation" was officially used when the present Canadian federal system was established in 1867, the term is recognized to be a misnomer since Canadian provinces are not sovereign and do not claim to be. In the case of Switzerland, while the country is still officially called the Swiss Confederation (Confederation) Helvetica, Confédérationsuisse) is also a misnomer now since the Swiss cantons lost their sovereign status in 1848.[5]

      In Belgium, however, the opposite movement is under way.[6] Belgium was founded as a centralised state, after the French model, but has gradually been reformed into a federal state by consecutive constitutional reforms since the 1970s. Moreover, although nominally called a federal state, the country's structure already has a number ofconfederational traits (ex. competences are exclusive for either the federal or the state level, the treaty-making power of the Federating units without almost any possible veto of the Federal Government). At present, there is a growing movement to transform the existing federal state into a looser confederation with two or three constitutive states and/or two special regions.[7]

      By definition, the difference between a confederation and a federation is that the membership of the member states in a confederation is voluntary, while the membership in a federation is not. A confederation is most likely to feature these differences over a federation: (1) No real direct powers: many confederal decisions are externalised by member-state legislation. (2) Decisions on day-to-day-matters are not taken by simple majority but by special majorities or even by consensus or unanimity (veto for every member). (3) Changes of the constitution, usually a treaty, require unanimity.

      Over time these terms acquired distinct connotations leading to the present difference in definition. An example of this is the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles established a national government under what today would be defined as a federal system (albeit with a comparatively weaker federal government). However, Canadians, designed with a stronger central government than the U.S. in the wake of the Civil War of the latter, use the term "Confederation" to refer to the formation or joining, not the structure, of Canada. Legal reforms, court rulings, and political compromises have somewhat decentralised Canada in practice since its formation in 1867.

Federal

   A federation (Latin: foedus, foederis, 'covenant'), also known as a federal state, is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (federal) government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, are typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision of either party, the states or the federal political body.

   The governmental or constitutional structure found in a federation is known as federalism. It can be considered the opposite of another system, the unitary state. Germany with sixteen Länder is an example of a federation, whereas neighboring Austria and its Bundesländer was a unitary state with administrative divisions that became federated, and neighboring France by contrast has always been unitary.

   Federations may be multi-ethnic and cover a large area of territory (e.g. India), although neither is necessarily the case. The initial agreements create a stability that encourages other common interests, reduces differences between the disparate territories, and gives them all even more common ground. At some time this is recognized and a movement is organized to merge more closely. At other times, especially when common cultural factors are at play such as ethnicity and language, some of the steps in this pattern are expedited and compressed.

   The international council for federal countries, the Forum of Federations,[2] is based in Ottawa, Ontario. It helps share best practices among countries with federal systems of government, and currently includes nine countries as partner governments.

   Several ancient chiefdoms and kingdoms, such as the 4th century BC League of Corinth, Noricum in Central Europe, and the Haudeno saunee Confederation in pre-Columbian North America, could be described as federations or confederations. The Old Swiss Confederacy was an early example of formal non-unitary statehood.

   Several colonies and dominions in the New World consisted of autonomous provinces, transformed to federal states upon independence (see Spanish American wars of independence). The oldest continuous federation, and a role model for many subsequent federations, is the United States of America. Some of the New World federations failed; the Federal Republic of Central America broke up into independent states 20 years after its founding. Others, such as Argentina and Mexico, have shifted between federal, nonfederal, and unitary systems, before settling into federalism. Brazil became a federation only after fall of the monarchy (see States of Brazil), and Venezuela became a federation after the Federal War.

Germany is another nation-state that has switched between confederal, federal and unitary rule, since the German Confederation was founded in 1815. The North German Confederation and the Weimar Republic were federations.

   Founded in 1922, the Soviet Union was formally a federation of Soviet Republics, Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union and other federal subjects, though in practice highly centralized under the Government of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation has inherited a similar system.

   Several dominions of the British Empire, independent during the years past World War II, became federations: Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Malaysia. Australia and Canada are independent federations, yet Commonwealth realms.

The Forum of Federations was established in 1999.

   In some recent cases, federations have been instituted as a measure to handle ethnic conflict within a state, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Iraq since 2005.

FEDERETAIONS AND OTHER OF STATE

A map of Argentina, showing its twenty-three provinces constituent and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires

A map of the United Mexican States (Mexico), showing its thirty-one constituent states and the Federal District

A map of the United States of America showing its fifty constituent states and the Federal District

Federations

   In a federation the component states are in some sense sovereign, insofar as certain powers are reserved to them that may not be exercised by the central government. However, a federation is more than a mere loose alliance of independent states. The component states of a federation usually possess no powers in relation to foreign policy, and so they enjoy no independent status under international law. However, German Lander do have this power,[3] which is beginning to be exercised on a European level.

   Some federations are called asymmetric because some states have more autonomy than others. An example of such a federation is Malaysia, in which Sarawak and Sabahentered the federation on different terms and conditions from the states of Peninsular Malaysia.

   A federation often emerges from an initial agreement between a number of separate states. The purpose can be the will to solve mutual problems and to provide for mutual defense, or to create a nation state for an ethnicity spread over several states. The former was the case with the United States and Switzerland, the latter with Germany.[clarification needed] However, as the histories of countries and nations vary, the federalist system of a state can be quite different from these models. Australia, for instance, is unique in that it came into existence as a nation by the democratic vote of the citizens of each state, who voted "yes" in referendums to adopt the Australian Constitution. Brazil, on the other hand, has experienced both the federal and the unitary state during its history. Some present day states of the Brazilian federation retain borders set during the Portuguese colonization (i.e. previous to the very existence of Brazilian state), whereas the latest state, Tocantins, was created by the 1988 Constitution for chiefly administrative reasons.

Seven of the top ten largest countries by area are governed as federations.

Unitary

   A unitary state is sometimes one with only a single, centralised, national tier of government. However, unitary states often also include one or more self-governing regions. The difference between a federation and this kind of unitary state is that in a unitary state the autonomous status of self-governing regions exists by the sufferance of the central government, and may be unilaterally revoked. While it is common for a federation to be brought into being by agreement between a number of formally independent states, in a unitary state self-governing regions are often created through a process of devolution, where a formerly centralised state agrees to grant autonomy to a region that was previously entirely subordinate. Thus federations are often established voluntarily from 'below' whereas devolution grants self-government'above'.

   It is often part of the philosophy of a unitary state that, regardless of the actual status of any of its parts, its entire territory constitutes a single sovereign entity or nation-state^, and that by virtue of this the central government exercises sovereignty over the whole territory as of right. In a federation, on the other hand, sovereignty is often regarded as residing notionally in the component states, or as being shared between these states and the central government.

Hegemony

   "Hegemon" redirects here. For other uses, see Hegemon (disambiguation).

   Hegemony (UK /hɨˈɡɛməni/, US /ˈhɛdʒɨmoʊni/, US /hɨˈdʒɛməni/; Greek: ἡγεμονία hēgemonía, leadership and rule) is an indirect form of government, and of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules geopolitically subordinate states by the implied means of power, the threat of force, rather than by direct military force.[1] In Ancient Greece (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states.

   In the 19th century, hegemony denoted the geopolitical and the cultural predominance of one country upon others; from which derived hegemonism, the Great Power politics meant to establish European hegemony upon continental Asia and Africa.[3] In the 20th century, Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed the philosophy and the sociology of geopolitical hegemony into the theory of Cultural Hegemony, whereby one social class can manipulate the system of values and mores of a society, in order to create and establish a ruling-class Weltanschauung, a worldview that justifies the status quo of bourgeois domination of the other social classes of the society.

The threat of the threat: Greece under the hegemony of Thebes, 371–362 BC.

   In the praxis of hegemony, imperial dominance is established by means of cultural imperialism, whereby the leader state (hegemon) dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence, either by an internal, sponsored government or by an external, installed government. The imposition of the hegemon’s way of life — an imperial lingua franca and bureaucracies (social, economic, educational, governing) — transforms the concrete imperialism of direct military domination into the abstract power of the status quo, indirect imperial domination.[1] Under hegemony, rebellion (social, political, economic, armed) is eliminated either by co-optation of the rebels or by suppression (police and military), without direct intervention by the hegemon; examples are the latter-stage Spanish and British empires, the 19th- and 20th-century reichs of unified Germany (1871–1945),[7] and currently, the United States of America.[8]

Imperium (Empire)

   An empire is a multi-ethnic state or group of nations with a central government established usually through coercion (on the model of the Roman Empire). An empire often includes self-governing regions, but these will possess autonomy only at the sufferance of the central government. On the other hand, a political entity that is an empire in name, may in practice consist of multiple autonomous kingdoms organised together in a federation, with a high king designated as an emperor. One example of this was Imperial Germany.

2.  Comparison with other systems of autonomy

a)  Federacy

A federacy is essentially an extreme case of an asymmetric federation, either due to large differences in the level of autonomy, or the rigidity of the constitutional arrangements. The term federacy is more often used for the relation between the sovereign state and its autonomous areas.

b)  Devolution

A federation differs from a devolved state, such as the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain, because, in a devolved state, the central government can revoke the independence of the subunits (Scottish Parliament, Welsh National Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly in the case of the UK) without changing the constitution.

c)  Associated States

A federation also differs from an associated state, such as the Federated States of Micronesia (in free association with the United States) and Cook Islands and Niue (which form part of the Realm of New Zealand). There are two kinds of associated states: in case of Micronesia, association is concluded by treaty between two sovereign states; in case of Cook Islands and Niue, association is concluded by domestic legal arrangements.

d)  Crown dependencies

The relation between the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey in the Channel Islands and the United Kingdom is very similar to a federate relation: the Islands enjoy independence from the United Kingdom, which, via The Crown, takes care of their foreign relations and defence – although the UK Parliament does have overall power to legislate for the dependencies. However, the islands are neither an incorporated part of the United Kingdom, nor are they considered to be independent or associated states. The Isle of Man does not have a monarch, per se; rather, the British Monarch is, ex officio, Lord of Mann(irrespective of the incumbent's sex).

e)  Overseas territories

Overseas territories, such as the British overseas territories, are vested with varying degrees of power; some enjoy considerable independence from the sovereign state, which only takes care of their foreign relations and defence. However, they are neither considered to be part of it, nor recognised as sovereign or associated states.

f)  Alleged de facto federations

The distinction between a federation and a unitary state is often quite ambiguous. A unitary state may closely resemble a federation in structure and, while a central government may possess the theoretical right to revoke the autonomy of a self-governing region, it may be politically difficult for it to do so in practice. The self-governing regions of some unitary states also often enjoy greater autonomy than those of some federations. For these reasons, it is sometimes argued[by whom?] that some modern unitary states are de factofederations.

De facto federations, or quasi-federations, are often termed "regional states".

3.  The examples

Spain

Autonomous communities of Spain

      Spain is suggested as one possible de facto federation as it grants more self-government to its autonomous communities^[8][9] than most federations allow their constituent parts^{[citation needed]}. For the Spanish parliament to revoke the autonomy of regions such as Galicia, Catalonia or the Basque Country would be a political near-impossibility, though nothing bars it legally. Additionally, some regions such as Navarre or the Basque Country have full control over taxation and spending, transferring a small payment to the central government for the common services (army, foreign relations, macroeconomic policy). For example, one scholar discusses the "federal nature of Spain's government (a trend that almost no one denies)."^[10] Each autonomous community is governed by aStatute of Autonomy (Estatuto de Autonomía) under the Spanish Constitution of 1978.

People's Republic Of China vs Republic Of China

The People's Republic of China is commonly known as China and the Republic of China is commonly known as Taiwan. These are separate states with a shared history; China claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

After the Kuomintang reunified China in 1928, most of mainland China was governed by the Republic of China (ROC). The island of Taiwan was under Japanese rule at the time. At the end of World War II in 1945, Japan surrenedered Taiwan to the Republic of China. In 1949, there was a civil war in China and the government (ROC) lost control of mainland China to the Communist Party, which established the People's Republic of China (PRC) and took control of all of mainland China. Only the island of Taiwan remained under the control of the ROC.

Since then, both the ROC and the PRC have been claiming to represent all of "China", and both officially claim each other's territory. In the 1992 consensus, both governments agreed that there is only one "China" but each claimed to be the sole representative of the sovereignty of undivided China. The PRC's (China's) official policy is to reunify Taiwan with mainland China under the formula of "one country, two systems" and refuses to renounce the use of military force, especially if Taiwan seeks a declaration of independence.

In Taiwan political opinion is divided into two camps: the Pan-Blue Coalition (majority Kuomintang) believes that the ROC is the sole legitimate government of "China" but supports eventual Chinese reunification. The opposition Pan-Green Coalition (majority Democratic Progressive Party) regards Taiwan as an independent state and seeks wide diplomatic recognition and an eventual declaration of formal Taiwanese independence.

Comparison chart

Improve this chart	People's Republic Of China	Republic Of China
Currency:	Chinese Yuan (also called Renminbi) (¥) (CNY)	New Taiwan dollar (NT$) (TWD)
Time zone:	China Standard Time (UTC+8)	CST (UTC+8)
Government:	Single-party state, nominal communist state	Presidential republic
Largest city:	Beijing	Taipei
Internet TLD:	.cn, .中國, .中国	.tw, .台灣, .台湾
Calling code:	+86	+886
Capital:	Beijing	Taipei
Demonym:	Chinese	Taiwanese or Chinese or both
Drives on the:	Right, except for Hong Kong & Macau which drive on the left	right
Official language(s):	Modern Standard Mandarin (or Putonghua)	Mandarin
Population:	1,339,724,852 (1st) (2010 census)	23,174,528 (49th) (2011 estimate)
Gini:	41.5 (2007)	34.1 (2008)
Proclaimed:	1 October 1949	1 January 1912 (original republic), 7 December 1949 (after the civil war)
Official script:	Simplified Chinese	Traditional Chinese
ISO 3166 code:	CN	TW
Total Area:	9, 706, 961 km²	13,974 sq mi (136th)
Ethnic groups:	91.51% Han 55 recognised minorities 1.30% Zhuang, 0.86% Manchu, 0.79% Uyghur, 0.79% Hui, 0.72%Miao, 0.65% Yi, 0.62% Tujia, 0.47% Mongol, 0.44% Tibetan 0.26% Buyei, 0.15% Korean, 1.05% others	98% Han, 70% Hoklo, 14% Hakka, 14% Mainlanders, 2% Taiwanese aborigines
GDP (PPP):	2011 estimate	2010 estimate
Recognised regional languages:	Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Zhuang, and various others	Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka Chinese, Formosan languages
President:	Xi Jinping	Ma Ying-jeou
Water (%):	2.80	10.34
Premier:	Li Keqiang	Wu Den-yih

Prelude

After the revolution of Wuchang Uprising in 10 October 1911, The Republic of China was formally established. From 1912-1949 the central authority of government had to deal with

·         Warlordism (1915–28)

·         Japanese invasion (1937–45)

·         The Chinese Civil War (1927–49)

By 1945 most of China was under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) also called the Nationalist Party. After World War II it took over the island groups of Taiwan and Pengh. The turning point for the Kuomintang party happened in 1949 when the Communist took over the control of continental China in the Chinese Civil War. The Kuomintang party, calling themselves the Republic of China, shifted base to Taiwan with control over only Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Taipei was made the provisional capital.

The communist party took control over mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China with Beijing as their capital. Thus began the fight of the two governments claiming to be the legitimate Government of China.

UN Membership in 1970

Until 1970 ROC was recognized as the government of China by all the other countries and the United Nations. ROC was one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. In 1971, via UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 China's representation was replaced by the PRC. This changed the world view and now when we say "China" we refer to the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Republic of China (ROC) is considered to be Taiwan.

Area and Neighbors

The border between PRC and ROC is located in territorial waters. The PRC exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly administered municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two highly autonomous special administrative regions (SARs) – Hong Kong and Macau. It borders with 14 Nations Vietnam, Laos, Burma, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea.

The government of the Republic of China currently governs the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor islands. Its neighbours are People's Republic of China in the west, Japan in the northeast, and the Philippines in the south.

Contemporary life in both countries

China (PRC) is the world's second largest economy by both nominal GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP) and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is the world's largest exporter, second largest importer of goods and the fastest-growing major economy. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army with the second-largest defense budget.

The Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan) is also an economic powerhouse with an industrialized, developed economy and high standard of living. The ROC is a member of the WTO and APEC, one of the Four Asian Tigers, and the 26th-largest economy in the world. It is a major manufacturer of electronic goods such as semiconductor chips,phones and computers. The ROC is ranked high in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education and economic freedom.